Kirk Nurock orchestrated for Dizzy Gillespie and Leonard Bernstein, conducted a work for twenty voices and three canines at Carnegie Hall, and won a scholarship at age 16 awarded by Duke Ellington.

"A composer-pianist who has always defied categorization" - Village Voice

"Several of Nurock's works are specifically scored for untrained, improvisatory participants. Interestingly enough, many newspaper reviews of his presentations seem to revive the alarmed outcries of shocked innocence that greeted first performances of the now-recognized works of Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Schoenberg and Varese." - Nicolas Slonimsky (Baker's Biogr. Dictionary of Musicians)